How Unselling makes you win more (With Peter Bourke)

The more you sell, the less you win. I’m sorry. What ?

Back when Peter was a hard-nosed executive with firms like Accenture and IBM, he started noticing something funny. The less he sold, the more business he actually … won ? When he acted like a real person, he won. When he challenged his clients and pushed back, he won. When he had conversations instead of pitches, he won. And when he tried to sell, he lost.

Unselling” topped the Amazon sales charts for months, and after I read it I could see his refreshing, non-conventional thinking on what it really takes to make a sale for what it was: wisdom. The wisdom of someone who – for over three decades – sold complex, high end services to senior corporate buyers. The wisdom that comes from analysis, not from echoing what everyone else is saying. The kind of wisdom that is – unfortunately – all too often drowned in a chorus of “me too” thinking.